MEDIA: Florio bangs his way into mainstream NFL flow

It's in big red letters, trying to scream out louder than the other headlines making their upper-case for attention: "BANG IT HERE FOR THE LATEST NEWS & RUMORS."

In Mike Florio's world of ProFootballTalk.com, the big bang theory has been proven. A sports bloggerista of interest can burst through the compostable clutter and bang his own drum on a mainstream media beachhead, even if the murky goal appears only to register as many clicks as possible on a website with lots of network advertising.

NBC, which formed a business partnership with Florio last summer that led to reformatting the NBCSports.com site into an across-the-board PFT template, has accomplished that. The next leap of virtual faith is a seamless incorporation of Florio's hourly fact-and-rumor-finding mission as a TV info man, which started last year with his appearances on its Notre Dame coverage and expands to a postgame hit with Bob Costas on "Sunday Night Football."

With NBC's blessing and bankroll, Florio finds himself banging it even harder these days.

"There's definitely a greater obligation to the people who like to read the site," Florio said Thursday morning between taping a video element for his blog, sending his son off to his first football game of the year and cramming in several radio interviews before heading by car and train (he fears flying) to New York for this weekend. "With each passing year, we have hit a higher level and we need to bring more to the table. That can be intimidating."

Yet, how Florio got to this point is the stuff of an "NBC Dateline" investigation.

The 45-year-old went from an engineering degree from Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University through law school to working by himself as a labor lawyer in the backwoods of West Virginia. A misplaced Minnesota Vikings fan, he found his release by writing "on a lark" for NFLTalk.com, which was bought up by ESPN.

Eventually breaking out with his own plan, Florio wanted to be free to establish a clearinghouse for NFL online information, found mostly on newspaper websites, then add his own commentary.

As it worked, and sponsors were added, Florio cut back on his courtroom load to devote more to the website. The tipping point - signing up with NBC - allowed him to completely unplug from the legal world.

NBC's Al Michaels said "SNF" producer Fred Gaudelli told him about Florio's site shortly after it launched and, "I could tell immediately that he was smart and funny. The bottom line is he's good. The site is breezy and very topical. With so much volume, he can't be right 100 percent of the time but he tries to be - which is a lot more than I can say for others who've tried to do this sort of thing. And he's a good guy to boot."

Dan Patrick, the NBC "Football Night in America" studio host, trusts Florio enough to let him guest host his nationally syndicated radio show. Patrick appreciates Florio's work ethic and ability to contribute to the radio show with a detailed analysis on a breaking story on short notice.

"I think he gets the false label of `blogger' because he's more than that, and he's made it look pretty easy," Patrick said Thursday before NBC's season-opening Vikings-Saints telecast. "It's not like he's an overnight sensation. He's 10 years in the making. But he's learned if you're observant enough, you fit a mold of what people need, you sound authoritative, you work hard and you'll get these kind of opportunities."

Alex Weprin of the Sportsnewser blog wrote recently that Florio's addition to NBC's "SNF" lineup "further legitimizes the power of blogs in the modern sports era. While they were once shunned, teams, leagues and media organizations have since learned that they are not necessarily the enemy. ... In this new media landscape, news organizations need the passion that blog readers bring, while bloggers, quite frankly, could use the money."

At this point, Florio says he's supporting his family just fine financially.

"I know the first two or three years I was doing this, I didn't make any money, but it was fun," said Florio, whose recently celebrity has allowed him to write for GQ magazine, rank broadcasters for USA Today and publish the first Pro Football Talk NFL season preview magazine.

"It may sound crazy, but this is a heck of a lot less stress than being a lawyer. Some days, like today, are really nuts, but for the most part it's manageable. Stress is staying up until 4 a.m. for a trial that carries the weight of a client's interests on your shoulders."

Change is on air for NFL this season

For those keeping score, the most notable NFL TV changes made this season:

== Ian Eagle has landed with Dan Fouts on CBS' regional games, taking the spot vacated when Dick Enberg asked out so he could do San Diego Padres games. The first Eagle-Fouts game will be seen in L.A.: Oakland at Tennessee, 10 a.m. Sunday. Our choice: Move Fouts back to play-by-play (as he did with ABC on college games) and pair him with Boomer Esiason.

== With Lakers play-by-play man Spero Dedes now on CBS' regional games with Randy Cross, the Culver City-based NFL Network had to find a new host for its "GameDay Morning" show. It decided to time-shift Rich Eisen, meaning he'll be replaced by Fran Charles at the end of the day's "GameDay Final" show. "At what time does NFL GameDay Morning start again?" Eisen asked. That would be 6 a.m., requiring about a 3:30 a.m. wake-up call. Good luck with that.

== Former NFL quarterback Kurt Warner, who did some Arena League games for NFLN, joins Fox for a short schedule starting Oct. 10 (conveniently, Arizona hosting New Orleans). His play-by-play partner will be either Chris Myers or Chris Rose, putting them near (if not at) the bottom of the depth chart. His new partner of ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" ... not Matt Leinart.

== The Keith Olbermann-Dan Patrick reunion tour has ended, with NBC choosing not to use the MSNBC ranter Olbermann on its Sunday night pregame show any longer to banter through the highlights of the day. For that matter, "Football Night In America" has agreed that less can be more, with only five participants - Patrick, Bob Costas, Tony Dungy, Rodney Harrison and Peter King. Where have you gone, Tiki Barber?

WHAT SMOKES

== The evolution of football's diverse diagramming goes beyond Xs and Os and adds the other 24 letters of the alphabet in an exhaustive effort by Sports Illustrated's Tim Layden called "Blood, Sweat And Chalk - The Ultimate Football Playbook: How the Great Coaches Built Today's Game" (Sports Illustrated Books, $26.95, 255 pages). Starting with the Single Wing offense and progressing to the A-11, pay attention to Chapter 13 on the One-Back Spread, where the lineage intersects Granada Hills and the late Jack Neumeier. Layden, who writes that he talked to more than 150 former players and coaches for this book, leaned on a 1997 interview he did with Neumeier and updates it through another former renowned Granada Hills High coach, Darryl Stroh, and 1970 Highlanders quarterback Dana Potter. They explain how this system, fashioned after Tiger Ellison's "run and shoot" spread offense, made John Elway one of the most storied players in Southern California prep history. Layden's chapter on USC's "Student Body Right" also has former head coach John Robinson revealing how former USC assistant Don Coryell, then under head coach John McKay, was most likely responsible for formulating it, although "I always heard there was a high school coach somewhere in L.A. who was running" that offense. Wish that mystery could have been resolved here.

(UPDATE: Reader Jay Isles, a 1957 graduate of Compton Centennial High, wrote in to say it was Centennial coach Arron C. Wade who ran the 'Student Body Right' from 1955-57. His star running back Paul Lowe later played for Coryell when he coached the San Diego Chargers and had a nine-year run in the NFL).

WHAT CHOKES

== With each already having a reality show on VH-1 run its course, Cincinnati Bengals receivers Terrell Owens and Chad (don't call me Johnson) Ochocinco could use a TV timeout. Unfortunately, Versus will give them their own program, "The T.Ocho Show," starting Oct. 12. Versus programming VP Andy Meyer told USA Today earlier this week: "We'd love this to be the creation of a new genre of television" where athletes can speak "without layers of editors or beat writers filtering them out." You enjoy swimming in an unfiltered pool? This is like giving the NFL's punishment police a free security camera. Over/under on a punishment resulting from this show is less than zero.